Why Most “AI for Sales” Advice Is Noise — and What Actually Matters

A smarter way to think about AI, connection, and closing deals

Hacking SaaS Sales

May 25, 2025

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“Despite claims that "people want to talk to people," the data shows otherwise”
-Jason Lemkin, SaaStr

Joking … sort of.

SaaStr shared data across 100,000+ conversations, along with other perspectives in 10 ways that AI will change sales forever. It certainly hit some chords as to what the future of sales will look like with AI.

A lot of what was mentioned in the article is happening already:

AI joining sales calls
AI BDR’s
AI handling full sales cycles < $10k
AI merging sales, support, and customer success

So today, we’ll cover two takeaways so that you can stay a step ahead:

Takeaway #1: The human aspect of sales, industry expertise vs sales expertise
Takeaway #2: Using AI to deepen the human connection, Mech AEs vs Obsolescence

Industry Expertise vs Sales Expertise

Betts released their 2025 compensation guide earlier this year, which is a great resource for overall trends in tech and compensation data. (Thank you Matt Harney for the share.)

A few trends taking shape in the tech industry from this resource:

Decline of traditional entry level roles in tech
Expansion the enterprise landscape to operationalize tiered high end transactions
The rise of strategic customer success roles

All of this ties into how AI is beginning to transform the tech enterprise sales landscape:

It’s harder to open up entry level roles when AI can do most of the heavy lifting at a fraction of the cost.
Allocation of expertise and resources towards deals that net $250k/year vs $2 million/yr. or across relative enterprise revenue spectrums.
With macro economic events over the past couple of years placing uncertainty around predictable new business growth, focus is shifting towards specialized resources which can help drive retention and “stickiness”.

The most interesting trend, however, is that organizations are increasingly shifting towards hiring based on the persona you sell to over industry expertise.

It signals that more value is being placed on how well you understand selling to an individual vs how much domain expertise you have.

AI is accelerating the commoditization of information. It’s why EQ holds more weight than ever.

Credit: Brian LaManna

Takeaway #1: The better you are at the human aspect of sales, the more likely you’ll win.

Truly understanding the challenges faced by your buyers and the “people” involved in a sales cycle
How to get attention the “human” way, ie, referrals, intros, learning from prospects
Telling compelling stories that resonate and connect, not repeating use cases or case studies.

Mech AEs vs Obsolescence

Which segues nicely into the original quote to start off today’s post.

Data showed that people are more satisfied with AI conversations. Moreover, the data also showed that people prefer great AI over mediocre humans.

Meaning that, if you can execute well on Takeaway #1 - you’re probably not mediocre.

Aside from the observations laid out in the SaaStr article and recapped in today’s post, the one that really caught my eye:

The best reps will become “mech-AEs” - augmented by AI to handle product knowledge, follow-up, and administrative tasks.

This, in my opinion, is already happening today.

I personally have been using AI in my f/t role to help me build territory plans, do account research, fill out RFP’s, and prep for discovery calls.

Efficiency outputs, although extremely helpful, isn’t what I’m really after.

I’m using AI to better understand the humans involved, like how executives might be incentivized, building narratives and positioning based off interviews from key stakeholders, or even getting people to open up easier on initial discovery calls.

Takeaway #2: Using AI to deepen human connection, not just efficiency

I’ve been passionate about how to incorporate AI into my day to day for a while now. My thesis from about a year and half ago has for the most part, held true:

This is the reason I’m launching Prompts to Revenue.

Because the “Mech AE” won’t just be augmenting their daily tasks with AI. They’ll be leveraging their time to do what every sales person did before there was MEDDPICC or Challenger. Before there was data enrichment or email campaign blasts.

Using AI to not just to augment their day to day, but free up time to build deeper human relationships.